The soprano Joan Rogers, winner of a Royal Philharmonic Society Award, is joined for Wolf’s ‘Italian Songbook’ by the acclaimed baritone Roderick Williams and the pianist Roger Vignoles.

This new recording for Champs Hill Records was made shortly after a recital which the performers gave at the Wigmore Hall, broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, in April 2012.

‘Each of the three brought sensitivity and experience to the poetry at their command, the end result being a performance of much beauty, feeling, and – most welcomely for this repertoire – joy.’

Opera Britannia

Self-critical of being master of ‘only a small-scale genre’ Hugo Wolf made carefully structured collections of his songs, each a tiny drama in music. It means that his Songbooks are much more than random collections and, as in the case of Italienisches Liederbuch, they represent his attempt to make something more substantial, to tell a bigger story, to create a kind of ‘compressed opera’.

Wolf, who died in 1903 following a period of insanity brought on by syphilis, described Italienisches Liederbuch – his last major work – as ‘the most original and perfect of my compositions’.

Wolf sets his Italian texts, in German translation, with extraordinary wit and perception – in ‘Mein Liebster hat zu Tische mich geladen’ (My sweetheart invited me to dinner), the piano accompaniment reflects the very poor meal, right down to the accents representing the chopping of very stale bread. ‘Mein Liebster singt’ (My sweetheart is singing) incorporates the lover’s serenade in the piano part – music that sounds like a mazurka by Chopin.

"...Wolf’s piano writing does as much to convey the wittiness of the songs as the singers, and no one handles it better than Vignoles. His skillful and illuminating playing cannot be praised enough... you really can’t go wrong with this one from Champs Hill."

Robert Moore - American Record Guide - January/February 2014

"... Rodgers and Williams form a persuasive duo ... With his easy, mellow baritone and unaffected directness, Williams is profoundly moving in Wolf’s most eloquent love songs. For consistent illunination, not least from Vignoles, this new recording is as satisfyig as any."

Richard Wigmore - Gramophone magazine - November 2013

Performance **** Recording *****

"...Williams’s command of these acerbic mini-dramas is superb but the most impressive aspect is the expressivity and clarity of Vignoles’s playing, from the pellucid beauty of ’Auch kleine Dinge’ to the queasy trills in Ich liess mir Selig ihr Blinden’."